BIRDS AND BUTTERFLIES

Dabbling ducks in stream

At 9 a.m. yesterday, we joined a female American Black Duck enjoying the quiet sanctuary of the Huntsville Botanical Gardens in Huntsville, Alabama. She was hanging out in a pond at a feeding station on the Lewis Birding Trail of the Gardens and was among several ducks taking a bath in the water where giant goldfish circled. The fish appeared to have had long-time joint ownership of the pond with the dabbling ducks. The ducks eventually posed for photographer Vickie Sullivan but hid under a clump of iris for a long spell before succumbing to picture-taking.

We’d walked to the Lewis Trail in the Garden, designated as a “Hot Spot” by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, where over 100 species of birds have been observed at all seasons of the year. Lewis Trail covers the Garden’s diverse system of meadows, wetland, and bottomland forest and winds among native wildflower and cultivated gardens. Most of the quiet time, before the appearance of children who came to watch a toy train travel through a tiny village, I watched the ducks and unwound from busy days preceding our visit to the Gardens. 

Zebra butterfly 

Once the children appeared, we retreated to the Purdy Butterfly House, reputed to contain 1500 species of butterflies in the nation’s largest open-air butterfly house. Vickie, the intrepid photographer, caught a zebra butterfly feeding on a flower to which it returns every day, but it was the only butterfly that “sat” for picture taking, so we stood on an upper level watching turtles crawl in a small pond beneath the stairwell. When we descended, we saw a sign warning us to watch for button quail, a ground dweller four inches long that attaches to humans who, if not careful, can accidentally take them home with them. I left without a glimpse of this strange critter but have read that people purchase them for pets because they can’t fly away and are unable to perch on branches or sticks.

I admit to having done more bench sitting than walking, but the visit to Huntsville Botanical Gardens always reassures me there are still magical places set aside for public viewing of lush plant and wild life. 

Although children’s squeals penetrated the tranquillity of the Gardens on every trail, I was happy to see so many of them, from toddlers to teenagers, enjoying nature. Workers in the Gardens provide mothers with red wagons for toddlers, and I hope that these young enthusiasts continue to have an interest in the outdoors... perhaps will become future environmentalists and advocates of saving the Earth from human destruction.